wine-infused cupcakes for a bridal shower. The maid of honor had found the recipes online but wondered if Josie would do them for her. They’d turned out amazing. Josie had felt guilty the entire time she’d been in the bakery, but she’d had to make such a big number of cupcakes at once, and her oven at home hadn’t been big enough.
They should add those cupcakes to their off-menu menu. With the pussy cupcakes.
In the end, she just pressed her lips together and started on the apple cinnamon muffins.
Jane poured wine into coffee cups from the front of the bakery and handed them out.
The girls sipped and made muffins for about two minutes. Then Jane said, “Oh my God, Josie! What happened with Grant in Chicago?”
“Oh!” She’d been lost in thought. About margarita cupcakes with actual tequila in them and how they could add healthy muffins with zucchini in them to the menu. She looked at her two best friends. “Um, it was great.”
“I’m going to need an adjective other than great,” Jane said, leaning to refill her cup from the bottle.
Zoe nodded. “This is really uncool. You always wanted details about Aiden and Dax.”
The thing was, she would almost rather talk to Zoe about her ideas for the bakery. She had lots of those suddenly. Or maybe it wasn’t sudden. But they’d started to gel recently. Whereas, she had no idea what to say about Grant. He gave her butterflies and made her sad at the same time.
They’d decided not to tell anyone they’d gotten married, so she couldn’t tell the girls about that.
What was the point of saying anything? The surgery was over, so no one needed to know about that. Her recovery was coming along great. In fact, she’d felt so good, that they’d come back to Appleby on Tuesday rather than Wednesday. They were just waiting to make sure all the bills went through and the insurance company covered everything and to see what the final outstanding balance was.
Then they could get divorced.
At least, that’s what she was waiting for. She assumed that’s what Grant was waiting for as well. Considering he was less interested in the whole marriage thing overall than she was.
But they had to have some kind of story about their romantic trip and extended stay in Chicago. Josie tapped into her feelings about those first few days. The flight on the private plane, the fancy hotel, the amazing dinner, the rock-her-world-ruin-her-for-all-other-men sex.
She had to focus on those things. Those were the things that made her stomach swoop and her body heat and her heart pound. But in an exciting, sexy, I have a big, hot, protective boyfriend way.
It was easier and more fun to think about those things instead of the last couple of days at Grant’s apartment. The days since her surgery had been bittersweet.
Grant had been amazing. He’d taken great care of her. He’d cooked—cooked, not ordered in. He’d run her baths. He’d brought her medication when she needed it. He'd checked on her almost too often. He'd also sat with her on the couch, took her for walks through downtown, rubbed her shoulders and feet, and cuddled her at night.
He’d been the ultimate caretaker. Sweet and attentive and a little worried, but also just comforting and nice. Nice seemed like such a blah, weak word, but he really had been.
They hadn’t talked any further about their outlooks on marriage and relationships and if girls were or were not brainwashed into thinking that marriage and family should be their destiny or if that was just a natural inclination for many. They didn’t talk about their very different families. They didn’t talk about their own marriage for that matter.
They also didn’t have sex.
The whole post-op thing had something to do with that. She knew that Grant wouldn’t touch her until he was positive she wasn’t going to break and he wasn’t going to be positive about that until the doctor cleared her.
But it was a great excuse for her to practice a little distancing—physical and emotional—too. Things were weird between them. They’d gotten married for practical reasons but it hadn’t felt practical. It had felt like there were real feelings there. Until they actually talked about how they both viewed marriage.
She didn’t think Grant regretted getting married. It wasn’t that. But she did think he was a little worried about her turning this into more. She had to show him that she was a grown-up and could handle this being exactly